The Lovers' Garden
by NewTwilightFan
Summary: *ONE SHOT* Written for 2016 Straight Thru The Heart Contest. Bella Swan, a free-spirited student of nature, loves to lose herself in the wild beauty of the Olympic mountains. When she discovers a hidden garden devoted to the Greek Goddess of Love, a chance encounter ignites her most primal instincts.


_Hmmm. I seem to write a lot of one-shots. Maybe I have commitment issues. This little supernatural tale was written for the Straight Thru The Heart Contest (2016) and I never got around to posting it on my own profile. Beta'd by Ninkita. Of course. Because she's awesome._

* * *

 **The Lovers' Garden**

"This isn't right," Bella mumbled as she checked her compass and turned her map a few degrees to the right.

The red circle that marked her destination was only two miles away. She was pretty certain that she should have come across the trail by now.

She took a long drink from her CamelBak, stuffed her map into her back pocket and kept walking. If she didn't reach the trail in ten minutes, she planned to head downhill. There was a forest service road three miles west of her position. It would take longer and force her to travel twice as far to reach her destination, but it would also get her safely back on track. If the place truly existed, that is.

Bella, a junior in college, was majoring in Forestry and Wildlife Management. While her classmates were cutting loose in Cabo or Palm Beach, she was on the final day of a week-long hike across the Olympic Peninsula. She had mapped out a winding route that passed by a glacier lake, an abandoned Indian village and, finally, a rumored lovers' garden built on the slopes of Mount Olympus. She already had hundreds of gorgeous photos documenting her first two stops. Now she was looking for the third. The blog post describing the location had been a bit ambiguous, so she was on high alert for any clues.

Bella had been an avid hiker her whole life, disappearing for hours at a time into the woods behind her childhood home carrying nothing more than a backpack filled with the basics: water, homemade trail mix, flashlight, whistle, knife, compass and a black garbage bag. She had only gotten lost a handful of times, usually because she became distracted by her daydreams and hadn't taken note of landmarks as she walked. One time she had spent the night alone in the woods, her knife clutched tightly in her right hand, while her left hand held the bag closed around her shoulders to trap her body heat.

Her father had found her soon after dawn, laughing at her bedraggled appearance to cover the very real fear and relief in his eyes. After that incident, Bella was always careful to plan her route and schedule check-in points with her dad when she went on longer hikes. She had tried hiking with other students but found that few of her peers had the same enthusiasm for sleeping in the dirt and traipsing over rocky ridges that she did. Despite that, she enjoyed trading stories with other nature enthusiasts. She chatted easily with other hikers she met on her trips, and was an active member of several forums and blogs, detailing her routes, the sights, hazards and photo opportunities as she discovered them.

When she reached the western edge of the mountains, Bella planned to head north along the 101 to Forks, her hometown, where she would get a much-needed shower and have dinner with her dad. The next morning he was going to drive her back to Bremerton where she could take a ferry across to Seattle, then ride a bus up to the apartment she shared with three other female students in North Seattle. This kind of one-way expedition allowed her to explore more trails and see more of the mountains she loved than the typical out-and-back or loop hikes in the guide books. Bella often started on one trail, struck out across the wild terrain for miles, then rejoined another trail further along her planned route.

"Thank goodness," she sighed in relief when she slipped between a cluster of Douglas Firs and stepped onto a narrow but worn footpath.

The trail was the upper leg of a popular hiking route, but few day hikers bothered to climb so high, preferring to stop for photos and picnic lunches at a picturesque waterfall four miles from the trailhead. Bella didn't intend to go that far down the mountain yet; she was going to leave the trail long before she reached the falls. If what she had read on the other hiker's blog was correct, there was a creek bisecting the trail very close to a turn-off that would lead her to the garden entrance.

The spring thaw created many rivulets and streams, but Bella knew immediately when she had found the correct one. Some romantic soul had built a bridge over the creek, small but gracefully arched, and painted it brick red. The stream was quick and murky with silt, but Bella could see how carefully the bridge-builder had shored up the wooden structure with chunks of native granite. The flecks of quartz and mica glistened in the late morning sun. Bella stopped by the stream, stripped off her pack and dug out her camera. She took several pictures of the bridge itself, and many more of the stream, with the sunlight glimmering across its rippled surface. Bella tossed back a handful of trail mix, washed it down with a few sips from her straw, then pressed on, more slowly now, examining the left side of the trail for the turn-off.

She almost missed it. If she hadn't been so familiar with the native plants, she would have overlooked it for sure. Bella's sharp eyes settled on a clump of delicate ferns intermixed with clusters of pink and white flowers.

"Bleeding hearts. Of course," Bella murmured with a quiet laugh, stroking the flowers gently with her fingertips.

There must have been a trail in the past, but it was overgrown now, the bleeding hearts and decorative ferns seeding, spreading and filling in the space over the years. Not wanting to damage them, Bella left the trail a couple of paces further down and walked parallel to the overgrown path. Soon she came across another stream, also spanned by a hand-built bridge. Beyond the bridge was a path made from crushed granite. Bella stepped onto the picturesque walkway, breathing a bit more rapidly in her excitement. She guessed that the blogger hadn't given specific directions or coordinates for a reason. He or she had wanted to share the beauty of the discovery, but didn't want it overrun by visitors the way so many other places had been in recent years.

Bella pushed aside a curtain of hanging moss and gasped. The lovers' garden was not just a rumor. She was looking into a small clearing. In the center stood a marble Aphrodite, bare feet stepping out of a cresting wave, bold and shapely, clothed in nothing more than her flowing hair. Bella raised her camera and snapped several pictures before stepping closer. The goddess of love stood with eyes lowered modestly, but a coy smirk about her lips, as if she knew exactly what effect she had on men. Bella felt herself blush at the obvious eroticism of the sculpture, wondering how it came to be placed in this clearing, high up on the mountainside.

The white gravel path continued around the statue and out of the north side of the clearing. Bella caught another glimpse of white through the trees and went to explore further. The second clearing held a statue depicting Perseus' rescue of Andromeda, the maiden clinging to his muscular frame as Hermes' winged helmet carried them both to safety. Bella took almost a dozen pictures, marveling at the perfection of the sculptor's art; the way the lovers' bodies twined together, so lifelike she could almost see them breathing.

Caught up in the beauty and mystery of the place, Bella drifted on, no longer paying attention to which direction she was walking. She found several other statues. One was a woman bathing, the water funneled from the nearby stream into a series of marble pools, her stone hands cupped to gather the water as it cascaded down a short rocky fall. Another depicted a couple chasing each other and laughing, the man's hand on the woman's shoulder, his fingers hooked in her robe, pulling it away to expose one soft, curved shoulder. To watch these figures undressing each other, their amorous intent so clear, made Bella's skin flush warm and pink with arousal. She hadn't ever felt that burst of lust, that moment of wanton abandon, with anybody.

The tranquility of the garden slowed time itself, and Bella walked dream-like down the path. Here and there, she found carvings on the trees, names and initials joined indefinitely in the living wood. She read them as she passed and wondered how many lovers had found their way here to announce their commitment, and maybe reaffirm it in a mossy hollow or on one of the low marble benches that sat here and there along the winding pathways.

She came to a shallow staircase, the rough stones made soft and slippery by years of accumulated moss. Bella found herself looking down on a small, circular amphitheater, the grassy floor bisected by six paths. Each path was flanked by a pair of larger-than-life nude statues, their hands joined and raised so that a person could walk between them to reach the recessed stage. The statues were enchanting, but the figure on the stage itself captured her attention completely.

It was a muscular man, armed with a copper bow and arrow, wings sprouting from his broad shoulders. His robe was swept back by the speed of his flight, his sandaled feet barely touching the earth. Bella saw how the shadow of his fully drawn arrow jutted out across the ground in front of him. It ended in a point at a white stone capped with oxidized copper. Several other stones formed a semicircle around the front of the statue. It only took a moment for Bella to realize what she was looking at. The winged archer was the centerpiece for a giant sundial, and it was almost midday.

Stepping carefully down the steps, Bella finally stood before one of the static couples and examined them frankly. The white marble was redolent of Greek statues she had seen in history books, but the anatomy of the male was far closer to realistic proportions than the prepubescent style so characteristic of ancient sculptures. And, unlike museum pieces, their features expressed pure emotion, as if they had been captured in the middle of a private conversation, frozen in the act of mutual seduction.

The male figure had a sense of intense purpose in his stare, and his partner stood with her lips parted, breathing him in. Their fingers were intertwined, interlocking, their bodies poised to take the first step in a dance as old as the human race. Bella felt self-conscious as she slipped between them, drawing closer to the winged Eros.

"You cheap, mother-fucking piece of shit!"

Bella squeaked in alarm and spun around. She hadn't heard or seen another human being since she had left the main path, mistakenly assuming that she was alone in the garden. She was simultaneously terrified and embarrassed, wondering if this man had witnessed her careful examination of the nude statues.

When she picked his form out from the shadow of the trees on the upper rim of the theater, Bella realized he was as oblivious to her presence as she had been to his. He was tall and slender, dressed for a day hike, with a worn black backpack at his feet. The reason for his outburst became clear as she got closer. He had been attempting to mark a tree when his small knife blade snapped. He was trying to gouge at the bark with the stub of blunted metal, but soon threw it on the ground in disgust.

"Excuse me?" Bella interrupted his expletive-riddled rant cautiously. "Do you want to borrow mine?"

The young man spun around in surprise, his feet catching on a root, and he fell down with another curse.

"Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to sur-"

"Where did you come from?" he gasped from his undignified sprawl.

"Um… I was just looking around. I saw this place mentioned on a blog I follow, so I thought it was worth checking out. I'm Bella, by the way."

She held out her right hand to help him back to his feet. Bella was immediately struck by his height. He couldn't have been more than 24 or 25, he had a lanky build, and his clothes were good quality but casual, certainly not suited to roughing it in the mountains. Bella felt immediately embarrassed about her drab clothes and greasy hair. At least she was wearing a clean shirt and deodorant.

"Hey, I'm Edward. Sorry about my language. I thought I was alone. I've never actually seen anyone else come here. I didn't mean to-"

"It's okay. Don't apologize. I totally understand," Bella interrupted him. She pulled her knife from her belt. "I was just going to offer you this."

Edward accepted the rugged knife with a soft laugh. "Wow. Yeah. This would have been more appropriate." With pink cheeks, he picked up the useless jack knife and dropped it, along with the broken-off blade, into the side pocket of his bag.

Bella looked at the fresh carving and cocked her head to one side. It was a large heart around the beginnings of an inscription. Edward finished carving his name, then added a plus sign below it before wiping the blade clean and snapping it shut.

"I don't get it. Edward plus… didn't you come here with somebody?"

"Did you?" he asked, his eyes boring into hers.

"Well, no… I was just exploring." Bella stepped back, confused by his sudden defensiveness. "I don't understand. What's the point of-"

"There isn't one. You're right. It's dumb." He sat down beside his bag and slumped back against the tree with a heavy sigh.

"I…" Bella paused, at a loss for how to respond. She looked at him again, taking in his gelled hair and aristocratic good looks. He looked vaguely familiar, but she was certain he hadn't grown up in Forks. "I'm sorry. That came out completely wrong. Can we start over? I'm Bella. I'm a nature nerd. I go to UW, but I grew up out here. How are you doing?"

He looked up at her, then down to her outstretched arm. He took her hand and shook it with an apologetic smile. "I'm Edward. My parents moved to Forks almost four years ago, and I followed them out this way last year. I'm a student, too, working on my Masters at SPU. I catch the ferry over to visit my parents most weekends. What you saw, that craziness, that's not me. I'm really sorry. You must think I'm totally nuts."

"No! Not at all," Bella protested, setting her pack down and sitting on one of the mossy steps. "I was just a bit surprised to see somebody else here. It's like a secret garden. So mysterious. I mean, I've been all over these mountains and never even heard of it. How did you know about it?"

"My ex showed me this place when we had been dating about a month. Amber's mother had originally told her about it, including the different theories about how all these statues came to be hidden up here. Her conclusion was that a man with a romantic heart, a love of Greek mythology and too much money wanted to make his mark on Mount Olympus. Kind of an expensive gesture, if you ask me. Even so, it's hard not to fall prey to the atmosphere, isn't it? We would come back whenever I was in town and the weather was nice enough. I actually proposed to her at Aphrodite's feet. Cheesy, huh?"

"No. That's the most romantic thing I've ever heard of!"

"I thought so, at the time. Fat lot of good it did me. She thought her professor's desk was pretty romantic, too, I guess." He kicked his legs out straight in front of him and leaned his head back against the tree.

Bella shook her head. "That's awful. I'm so sorry."

"Well, that's my loser story. So here I am, on what should have been our third anniversary as a couple, sulking and brooding over a bitch who couldn't care less about me. My dad's right. I'm a hopeless romantic, emphasis on the hopeless part."

"Don't say that. I bet there are a million girls who would love to be with a guy like you!"

"Yeah?" he asked with a sidelong glance.

Bella felt her cheeks flaming pink. "Well, yeah. You seem really nice."

"Nice," he said, nodded slowly. "It's a start."

Bella couldn't help laughing. Within a few seconds, he joined in.

"Well, it's lunch time. Want a sandwich?" He unzipped his backpack and started pulling out plastic containers of sandwiches, fresh-cut fruits and vegetables. "My mom packed me some food, but there's no way I can eat it all."

Bella thought of the tough jerky, bruised apple and trail mix in her own bag and agreed readily. She squeezed a dollop of hand sanitizer into her palm, shrugging when Edward raised an eyebrow and smirked, and accepted the proffered food eagerly.

"Wow. Tell you mom thanks. This is so delicious," she said between the bites of roast beef and Swiss cheese sandwich.

"I'll let her know. She says I've lost weight since last summer, so she tries to stuff me until I choke every time I visit."

"Lucky," Bella groused, reaching for a cluster of green grapes. "My dad just buys me a burger at the Forks diner when I visit."

"Who's your dad again?"

"Uh, Charlie Swan."

Edward choked, and Bella dropped her food to pound on his back.

"Chief Swan?" he finally gasped out.

"Well, I just call him Charlie. Or Dad when I'm feeling sentimental."

"You're Bella Swan. I don't think we've met before. I'm pretty sure I would have remembered you. But my dad is Carlisle Cullen. I guess you would know him as Dr. Cullen."

"No way! Small world. Well, small town. He was the new doc in town my senior year. He stitched me up when that asshole Tyler Crowley knocked me off the bleachers at the end-of-year assembly."

"Yeah, I heard about that, even all the way back in New England. Mom said you should have been allowed to press charges against him for criminal idiocy."

"Is that a thing?"

"It should be. I'm glad you're okay."

"Thanks," Bella smiled, not at all embarrassed to be talking about her past mishaps with a near stranger. "So you moved out here after you finished your undergrad classes?"

"Yeah. I wanted to be closer to Amber. She was a waitress in Port Angeles at the time. We had started a long-distance relationship during my second trip out here, and I stupidly thought moving here would bring us closer together. I found out she was cheating on me right before Christmas last year. I almost dropped everything and moved back East, but my parents are here, and I really love the school. I'm glad I stayed now. I think I'm finally ready to move on, you know?"

"That's really wonderful. You shouldn't let somebody else's decisions dictate your life. You deserve better than that. And I'm glad you found a way to move on. What helped the most, do you think?" Bella asked, curious about how people got over heartbreak. She had never been in love, let alone suffered a broken heart.

"Coming here today. Realizing that what I thought was love or compatibility was nothing more than hormones. That and the pressure of cramming all of the romance and physical stuff into short visits without any of the day-to-day living and conversation that make a real relationship work. We couldn't keep our hands off each other. Amber was… well, I thought that nothing in the world could feel better than sex, therefore I must have loved her. I have to admit, I'm relieved I know the truth, even though it was humiliating and painful at the time."

Bella's cheeks were burning as she listened and watched Edward talking. His eyes flashed with flecks of green and blue, like polished malachite. He gestured as he spoke, his graceful hands emphasizing his thoughts. She found herself picturing his hands and how they would trap and hold her body in the throes of passion, how those fingers would stroke down her sides and grip her hips, twist and tug at her hair or wrap around her throat, thumbs pressing against her pulse point as she came. This Amber girl was a complete moron.

Bella gave a start when she realized he had fallen silent and she couldn't remember the last thing he had said. Her eyes were wide, her breathing shallow, and there was a fire burning low in her stomach. It was… unsettling.

"I'm sorry. I've been rambling. Are you okay?" he asked, his brow lowering with concern.

"I… I'd better get going. My dad. Check in. I… thanks for lunch," she said hurriedly, stuffing her arms through the straps of her pack and clambering to her feet. She was both hypersensitive to his presence, but also feeling foggy, not quite lucid. There was something very unnerving about the sensation.

"No problem. Hey, are you sure you don't want to walk back together? I parked at the trailhead below the falls. I can give you a ri-"

"Nope! I'm good," Bella cried, stumbling down the stone steps as quickly as she could.

She raced around the sundial, crossing in front of the statue of Eros, tripping slightly when she felt a bolt of energy burst across her back. She looked back in alarm. Edward was standing where she had left him, a look of shock and confusion on his face. Bella gritted her teeth and hurried on, taking the nearest path away from the scene. The things she was feeling, the unexpected burst of desire she experienced while looking at Edward, it was all too sudden. Too much. Too… Wait. Where was she?

In her panic, Bella had taken a completely different path than the one she had come in on. Confused and distracted, she stumbled into a shallow stone pool. She didn't recognize the clearing. Bella turned left and pressed on, her wet boots squelching with every step.

The next path led to a hexagonal gazebo with latticed walls of creamy marble. There were three paths leading in different directions away from the shelter. She chose one at random and raced on. The path wound around and between trees, and she occasionally caught flickers of white through the hanging moss and needles, but she soon realized that she was completely lost.

Just when she was considering turning back and retracing her steps to the sundial, Bella scrambled down a narrow staircase and found herself looking down on the winged archer again, but from a different angle. Feeling out of breath and embarrassed, Bella sank into a crouch and drank a few gulps of water. Edward was nowhere in sight, and she guessed he had taken the correct path back to the garden entrance. She didn't want to run into him again. She was completely humiliated by her mad-scramble escape and subsequent confusion. She decided to hang back a bit longer before retracing her steps to the entrance of the garden.

Bella picked her way around the top of the amphitheater until she reached the place where they had eaten lunch. Her gaze was drawn to the tree with the freshly carved heart. She traced Edward's name with her fingertips, the jagged cuts already leaking sticky sap. There was a large space below his name. An empty space. Bella fidgeted with her knife, flipping it open and closed.

Wouldn't it be incredible to feel that rush of lust and love that he had described? To be the reason why his eyes turned black and hungry with desire. He was easy to talk to. Easy to trust. Very easy to look at.

She wondered what he thought about her. Did it even matter? Now that he had moved beyond his ill-fated romance with his ex, he probably wouldn't be coming back here. He would probably never see her juvenile gesture.

Before she could stop herself, Bella was digging the tip of her blade into the bark, carving out her own name beneath his. The straight lines were easy enough, but the curved ones took concentration and control. She shrugged off her pack and focused until she finished her name, wiped the blade against her pants and folded it shut.

"There you are!" Edward's voice came from below and to her right. "You went the wrong way."

Bella squealed and spun around, backing up against the tree in the hopes that he wouldn't see what she had done. His eyes flicked from her pink cheeks to the knife in her hand, then back up to her wide eyes.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing!" she cried, pressing herself against the rough bark.

"Nothing? Then why do you sound so guilty?"

"Guilty?" she squeaked, her throat getting tighter the closer he came.

"Yes. Guilty. What are you hiding? Did you cross out my name or something?"

"No! I would never!" Bella held on tight to the tree as he came toe-to-toe with her, trying to see around her shoulders.

His hands, those long fingers that she had been so mesmerized by, wrapped firmly around her wrists and pulled her forward. He was a full head taller than her, his breath hot and sweet against her face as he looked down at her handiwork.

"Uh huh," he said, a smile stretching his lips into a beautiful curve. "It's like that, huh?"

"I didn't mean…"

"You didn't?" he challenged her, his eyes narrowing slightly.

"Well, maybe a little," she confessed in a whisper.

"Only a little?" he asked, pulling her closer and tipping his face down toward hers.

"You make me feel… warm," she explained with shy shrug of her shoulders.

"Just warm?" he asked, his hands creeping up her arms.

"Actually, kind of hot," she gasped.

"You are hot."

"So are you. Your ex is an idiot. Criminally so."

"So it is a thing," he concluded softly, his lips brushing against her forehead.

Bella was intensely grateful that she had done a rough wash beside a stream the night before. She could only imagine how awful she would have smelled otherwise.

"God, you smell incredible," he moaned, his hand finally reaching her shoulders and gliding up to cup her neck.

She was willing to attribute that to the undiluted pheromones oozing from her pores. If he thought she smelled good covered in dirt and sweat, she wasn't going to waste breath arguing.

"Can I kiss you?" he asked, his lips already ghosting down her cheek to the corner of her mouth.

Instead of answering, she just turned her head slightly, bringing her mouth to his, lips open and hungry for his taste. He groaned against her mouth and deepened the kiss.

"What is happening to me?" he moaned, his lips traveling along her jaw and down her throat.

Bella was asking the same question inside her head. There was an energy between them, a kind of primeval pulse that hummed and thrummed and urged them closer together. A magnetic force that would only be satisfied once there was no longer an iota of space between them.

His hands cupped her butt and squeezed her closer, lifting her up on her toes. Bella wrapped her arms around his shoulders and raised her right knee, hitched her leg around his side so she could feel the force of his desire. She let out a shocked cry when he pulled both of her legs around his waist and pinned her against the tree.

"Tell me to stop," Edward whispered, his hardened length grinding against her heat.

"Don't. Don't you dare stop," Bella gritted out, rocking her hips forcefully against him, her ankles locked behind his lower back. Her hair was snagging on the bark of the tree, and the rough surface was digging painfully into her shoulder blades and spine, but the pain only intensified the pleasure, making it more immediate, more insistent.

"You… I want you," Edward moaned against her throat.

His fingers were digging into her thighs, the only thing anchoring her to her body. Bella was certain that if he hadn't been holding on so tight, her spirit would have shattered and disappeared into the cosmos. Bella sensed the fire awakening, washing up through her hips and belly. It stood up like a wave cresting over a reef, a mountain of water on the brink of surrendering to gravity.

With her head back, eyes closed and heart wide open, she shivered in awe. The wave hovered there for a protracted heartbeat, a glassy edifice of barely restrained energy. Then it burst over her, swallowed her whole, dragged her under until she was breathing it in, drinking it down. She lay pinned beneath its weight as it found every part of her being and bathed it in the liquid fire. When she was filled to bursting, paralyzed by ecstasy, it exploded from her toes and fingertips, shooting white hot and iridescent along every inch of her skin.

"Fuck," Edward hissed, his body vibrating with an intensity she had never felt before.

Bella realized with a jolt that she needed to breathe and inhaled sharply, her eyes still squeezed shut.

"I…" Edward started, his face still pressed against her neck.

"You…" Bella said, then halted, realizing that she didn't even know what to say.

"We need to…" Edward tried again, obviously as tongue-tied and overwhelmed as she felt.

And they both dissolved into laughter, relieved and exhilarated, and a little embarrassed.

"I need a shower," Edward confessed, his cheeks bright pink as he carefully lowered her feet to the ground. He tried to smooth her hair, picking chunks of debris from the loose strands.

"I already needed a shower," Bella said sheepishly.

"No," he said, chuckling. "I need a shower or else hiking back to the car is going to be really uncomfortable."

He adjusted himself self-consciously, and Bella's eyes were automatically drawn to the bulge in his jeans.

"Well, there's a bathing pool up that way." She pointed off to the left.

"Come with me?" Edward asked, his hand finding hers.

"I just did," Bella teased, looking up at him from beneath lowered lashes.

"Hmmm. So you did. Care for an encore?"

"Yes, but if I don't get down this mountain before dark, my father is going to come looking for me. I don't think either of us wants to get caught skinny dipping by the Forks Chief of Police, even if we are miles outside of his jurisdiction."

"You're right. Time is of the essence. Let's get naked ASAP," he commanded, shouldering his pack and pulling her along after him.

Bella swatted his shoulder in mock outrage. "Who do you take me for?"

"That's easy. You're my Aphrodite."

"And you've got a silver tongue."

"You can get to know my tongue better later," he said with a heated look over his shoulder.

Bella felt his words ripple through her stomach. She didn't have a response.

They reached the pool within minutes. Bella dug through her pack for soap and the rag she used as a washcloth. At first she was self-conscious about taking off her clothes in front of him; she hadn't shaved since before she started her trek, and her left thigh and elbow were scraped and bruised from a fall earlier in the week. But none of those things seemed to register with Edward. His eyes were dark and intense, and he removed his own clothes blindly, never looking away from her face.

Walking backwards so they remained face to face, he took her hand and led her to the shallow steps at the edge of the pool. Bella giggled as his expression went from one of heated lust to shock and he let out a yelp when his foot hit the first step. He lost his balance and fell in with a massive splash. The frigid water put a stop to anything more amorous than a quick rinse. Bella was used to roughing it, so she fared better than Edward, who was flailing around in the waist-deep water, the skin across his chest and arms covered in goose pimples. Bella rubbed her skin dry with a chamois and got dressed. Edward clambered out of the pool a minute later, his hands cupped protectively over his more delicate parts. Bella clutched her stomach and laughed as she watched Edward stumble back into his clothes, his teeth chattering madly.

"Where did the sun go?" he griped. "I thought it was supposed to be warm today!"

"Actually, it's after 3 o'clock. It's gonna get real cold in about two hours. We'd better hurry. I owe my dad a call as soon as I get back in cell range."

"You still plan on walking all the way up to Forks? Now will you accept that ride?"

Bella deliberated for two seconds before nodding. "Yes. I would like that."

"Like it?" Edward stopped her, his hands resting on her waist.

Bella met his gaze with a reassuring smile. "I would love it."

"That's better. I'm not letting you out of my sight until we've planned that encore." He hefted his pack and started walking back the way they came.

"Is this your way of asking me out?" Bella asked, poking his calf with a stick that she grabbed from beside the path.

"Ow! Yes."

"Good. And in answer to your question that was not a question, I would love to go out with you. No long distance. The only obstacle between my place and yours is a teeny, tiny canal," Bella said, referring to the narrow body of water that separate the U-District from the rest of Seattle… and the Seattle Pacific University campus.

"Good thing somebody built a bridge," he replied with a sly wink, then took her hand and stepped onto the small red-painted bridge.

"Six, in fact," Bella said.

"No, seven."

"Seven?"

"Sure, there's the old train trestle out by Ballard."

"That doesn't count. Well, fine. If you count that, you have to count the locks. You can walk across them, too," Bella argued.

They walked down the trail, leaving the lovers' garden behind them, their fading voices still arguing about all the many ways they could find to be together. In the slowly dimming light, floating just outside of time, Aphrodite smiled.

 ****The End****


End file.
